Tag: yellow

The Spring is Here

spring has come to Skygit Valley. Last weekend I went there to photograph daffodils but ended up photographing less daffodils and more of other scenes of Skygit Valley rediscovering it for myself. Even when there were daffodils in the frame they were taking very little part of it.

First, my attention was captivated by the snow geese taking rest in Skygit Valley during their regular migration.

Then I got fascinated by the smoke and steam coming from tall pipes and blending with the sky.

Then I noticed puddles in the fields and was looking for interesting reflections.

Then I went after complete abstract shots like this.

Then after lonely trees.

Then finally, by the end of the day I finally stood by a daffodil field. Even then I more enjoyed how the sky was painted with clouds then the flowers themselves.

Random Stops

My excuse to mostly travel by car is “to stop and photograph along the way”. I know it is only an excuse though because once I get on the road I keep going without stopping all the way to the destination.

One reason I don’t stop along the way is because I’m putting my tunnel vision goggles on. I’m imagining the photographs I’ll do at the destination and want to get there as fast as possible.

Another reason which is much deeper and scarier is that I’m afraid to fail. I mean I can stop somewhere and there would be nothing to photograph. No, that’s not the right way to say it. There is always something to photograph. But there would be nothing that I’d like to photograph, there would be nothing that connects with me, nothing that relates to me. And I would be just wasting my time.

It takes an effort – it still does and likely will always do – to overcome that and force myself to stop at random places. Sure in 99.99% of cases I don’t find anything that would meet my eye. But then in that very small percentage point I’d find something like this and my heart starts to sing.

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An Old Clunker

A few weeks ago I went to the Palouse. I’ve been there many times. I find the experience of spending hours in the fields listening to wind and whispers of wheat moved by the wind relaxing and meditating.

Despite visiting the Palouse every year and some years several times a year I find something new every time. This time as I was driving on one of the Palouse roads I passed a blue old truck left rusting in a field. Had it been there before and I simply had never driven that road before? Or was it dragged out there recently? No idea.

My thought was that it is kind of interesting but it is not what I came for. I came for beautiful landscapes that the Palouse is rich with. The old rusty clunker was not quite a beautiful landscape. Neither it was making landscape beautiful. After all I could photograph it on the way back if I wanted. Thus I passed it by and kept on going.

As I was returning on the same road I decided to stop and take at least on photo – just to pay a tribute to the old clunker. I was stuck around it for about two hours. I could not stop photographing it. There were so many images, so many stories in that old truck.

First, I liked the truck filling the whole frame, leaving little room for anything else.

Then I wanted to show it in the field.

Then I realized I like its symmetry. While having background almost symmetrical.

The I liked how the blue truck blends with the blue sky. I wanted more sky.

Then I got closer to the truck. (I always start from a distance and then come closer to the subject. That way I don’t ruin anything I might want to include in wide frame.)

I liked the rhythmic change of blue to yellow and yellow to blue.

Then even closer.

That was too close. As I saw shadow of a rear view mirror I realized that I missed  those strong lines before. I had to step back to get them in.

Now really close. Focusing on individual details of the truck.

Lines, shapes and colors.

Lines and shapes. Lack of color.

Now closing on rusty patterns. This looked like Chinese characters to me.

And this looked like a map of some islands surrounded by water.

And of causes needed to capture the truck make and model sign.

“Ok. Enough.” I told myself and started walking back to the car. Only to see something interesting on the other side: bright white lines of the side mirror supports against dark black shadow of the truck.

Thanks for following thru all this store to the end with me. Times and times again I find that there are infinite possibility around us. No need to drive around. There are lots and lost of images in each and every place.

Addiction to contradiction

Is it me only or is everyone of us have addiction to contradiction? Snow in summer. Water in a desert. Line tree on otherwise bare hills. Clearing in a forest. Yellow flower in a meadow of blue flowers. It is all so fascinating.

When Less Is More

With better and better sensor technology and better software for HDR processing we can capture an incredible dynamic range in our images where we have an incredible details in highlights and in shadows.

Would photographers of the past be amazed with amount of details we can capture? Maybe. But I really miss silhouetted photos that have become such a rarity. They reveal very little leaving a lot of room for imagination.

The photo can be not about what is said but about what is not said, or to be more accurate about what is not shown and not about what is shown. It can be about mystery left in the shadows.

Never Can Take the Same Photo Twice

“No man ever steps in the same river twice” – Heraclitus

There is a set of small lakes near Banff called Vermillion Lakes. They are easier to access and a nice spot for sunrise photography. I visited them several times: on my way to Abraham Lake and on the way back. They are mostly frozen during winter that is if the winter is actually cold but there are a few of hot springs coming into them that never seem to freeze up.

I found myself a nice cozy place there which I kept coming back to photograph over and over. Initially, I wanted to repeat the photo I took the first time, just with a slightly different composition. When I came the second time though I discovered that the weather changed the look completely. After that the change itself was more interesting to me. So, I kept coming to the same place to see how it looks like at sunrise or sunset, how it looks in warmer weather and in colder weather.

Here are a few photos that I like the most out of my study of the same place.

Sunrise after snowfall:

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Twilight before sunrise with warm weather:

Sunset with clear sky when the temperature dropped below 0C again. I’ve waited for this one until gradient of color reaches its peak. (BTW, I love watching Earth’s shadow moving across the sky.)

Being Spontaneous

The main destination of my recent trip to Alberta, Canada was Abraham Lake. The reason Abraham Lake is so attractive to photographer in winter is because of unique phenomenon of frozen bubbles. While the lake freezes up in winter plants at the bottom of the lake produce methane gasses that come up to the ice and stay there frozen in ice while ice keeps growing downward. This creates fantastic surreal tri-dimensional structures in the ice sheet that covers the lake. There is also a persistent strong wind running thru the valley where the lake is located keeping ice clean of any snow. And the last but not least feature of this lake is winter is that it is artificial lake as the water is slowly drained from the lake in winter the ice cracks under its own weight.

It was quite scary standing on the ice when it cracks. The sounds of it ranged from a pitch high as if a guitar string was torn to a loud boom. The ice was very clean making me feel sometimes as if I was standing on water. And while consciously I understood there is thick ice under me, the sound of cracking ice made my subconscious scream RUN. So far subconscious was on a losing side.

The end of January when I went there turned out unusually warm there with temperatures rising up to 15C making ice melt at the top and thin ice walls separating layers of bubbles were melting away the fastest. On the second day of being at Abraham Lake I witnessed one of the photographers falling thru the ice while standing one one of the spots with high concentration of frozen bubbles. Fortunately, he did not fall of the way thru and was able to get out before anyone of the people rushing to help him (including me) were able to get to him. The whole incident seemed to be forgotten rather quickly. Even the photographer who fell actually staying on the ice and continuing to take pictures even in partially wet clothes.

But it scared me enough that I decided not to go on ice anymore. So, I set off to explore areas around Abraham Lake and find some other interesting spots to photograph. It proven a hard task. The warm temperatures melted most of the snow leaving the ground bare and unappealing to me. Yet I was stopping my car at any parking spot or trailhead, walking out and looking for opportunities. One of such spots was near river bed. It had been probably quite wild river in spring and summer. In winter it was lots of crumbled ice sheets lying on the ground. I thought I might be able to find a line in the ice cracks that would lead to the mountains in the distance.

While searching for that composition I saw a moon rising above the mountains. On a whim took a picture of it. I took only one picture. It was unusual for me. Typically, I work thru composition taking lots of images until I feel like I cannot get it any better. This time I just felt the image was ok not no more than that. Only when I was editing images from the trip at home I saw that image and thought it was beautiful. There are so many elements that work together and yet there is simplicity in it which attracts me.

Moonrise over Canadian Rockies

Moonrise over Canadian Rockies

Emotional Connection

There are good images. There are bad images. And then there are images with which I feel emotional connection.

Last fall I was photographing fall foliage in Tumwater Canyon near Leavenworth. I was out for two days, photographing in rain and wind, photographing water and leaves, clouds and rocks. On the last day before going back home I went on a hike up the wall of a canyon. That’s where I found scenes with which I felt emotional connection like with no other. It was a very special feeling that brought me inexplicable joy, the feeling of revelation.

. . .

It takes me long time to process images. It helps doing it a while after making them. Over time the feeling of being there wears off and I’m able to look at images more critically. I’ve just came by the images those images that brought me so much joy back there in the woods near Leavenworth. As soon as I saw them something inside me immediately clicked again.

I look at them and hear music, music of color, tone and form. One note transitions to another like one soft color transitions to another. I’d like glide this waves of color following tender curves of leaves over and over.

Inspiration

I have many photography. I like to dive into someone’s imagery and photo books is the most affordable way to do it. But looking at photo books is not where I get my inspiration from. What gets me inspired is paintings. I can spend endless hours studying one painting, how the light is captured, how the color is captured, how the feel of the scene is captured, the emotions in the brushstrokes. When I photograph I’m trying to achieve the same perfect light as in landscape paintings and I want to get my photographs to the same level of essence and feeling of color as impressionists’ paintings had.

Aspens in Pastel

Aspens in Pastel

Reflections of Colorado Autumn

I’ve finally completed editing photos from my trip to Colorado. Despite my misadventures that I’ve already described I’ve brought quite a few photos of intimate places I really liked. There are a few themes I can see thru the photos. One of the themes are reflections. Here a few photos with reflections. Enjoy!